Eugénie Bearhani (1760–1835) was born in Calcutta, raised in Haiti, and brought as a servant—a free woman of color—to America by an English officer on the eve of the American Revolution. Yet none of that prepared Eugénie for her next employer: Colonel Aaron Burr, a man some whispered had made a pact with the devil.
The lines between master and servant soon tangle and blur, and first attraction becomes dangerous obsession. Many historians deny she even existed, but Eugénie and the children she bore to Burr were very real—and so was her little-known marriage to America's first true villain.
Download and start listening now!
“In a performance filled with restrained rage, Kirsten Potter portrays Via, a seven-year-old Tamil girl, the product of her mother’s rape by a British soldier, who is sold into slavery. Her final owner, Colonel Prevost, renames her Mary…Potter makes Mary’s helplessness and confused feelings toward Burr starkly real. She skillfully conveys the dangerous nature of the Mary/Burr relationship, in the process revealing the jealousies, duels, and double-dealings of our Founding Fathers.”
—
AudioFile